Race Emerging as Factor Among Polk Voters

By GARY WHITEThe Ledger

Thursday

Oct 30, 2008 at 11:10 PM

As a volunteer for the Polk County Democratic Party, Cheryl Morrow of Lakeland lately has been making phone calls to local residents, offering guidance on absentee ballots, early voting and other electoral mechanics.

LAKELAND | As a volunteer for the Polk County Democratic Party, Cheryl Morrow of Lakeland lately has been making phone calls to local residents, offering guidance on absentee ballots, early voting and other electoral mechanics.

Morrow said her mere identification as a Democrat prompts some call recipients to denounce the party's presidential candidate, Barack Obama, using a racial epithet.

"I've had more people scream that word in my ear than I can tell you," said Morrow, 62. "Oh my gosh, the man I had yesterday, he was a beaut. He wouldn't vote for that 'N' if he was the last (candidate). … So I think it's starting to be a factor where it wasn't before, and it's shameful."

That factor is race. In case anyone needs reminding, the Nov. 4 election will be the first in which a black candidate represents a major party. The latest polls show Obama holding a narrow lead nationally over Republican opponent John McCain, but some Obama supporters worry racial animosity from white voters could undermine his chances.

Stephen Craig, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said the combination of a deeply unpopular Republican president and a weak economy would seem to augur an almost automatic victory for the Democratic candidate.

"Under normal conditions, there really is no way the Republicans should even be in play in this election," Craig said. "There are those who would argue the one reason why they are is that Obama happens to be a black man, and for a minority of people out there, that's a disqualifier."

Just how large or small a minority are those whites who automatically reject a black candidate? Most people seem unwilling even to guess at the percentage, and it's difficult to find white voters who will publicly admit to opposing Obama on racial grounds.

One Polk County resident, a registered Democrat who asked to remain anonymous, came close when she said she would never consider Obama "just because of his name. If they (Democrats) had someone running named John Smith, that's the one I'd vote for."

Morrow estimated she has lately heard racial slurs directed toward Obama on about 10 percent of the calls she makes for the Democratic Party to voters of all party affiliations.

A 'MAJOR' FACTOR

Obama, it should be noted, is biracial - born of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father. In the American racial calculus, though, he is considered black.

Several Polk residents chosen at random said they know white voters who have rejected Obama at least partly for racial reasons.

"It's probably a relatively major factor, I'd have to say, especially in the South," said Lakeland's Benjamin Harrison, 25, a white Obama supporter. "I still think there are a lot of racists in this country."

Armani Peterson, a black resident of Lakeland, said he has heard many whites dismiss Obama because of race.

"It hurts me to hear that because it's 2008 and you would think the nation's gotten over a lot of things, but they really haven't," said Peterson, 33, a car dealer who supports Obama. "It's going to be a tough road (for Obama). There are going to be some diehard white folks who don't want to see a black man become president. A lot of middle-class Democrats don't want to see him become president."

Eric Allen, chairman of the Polk County Republican Executive Committee, said it would be naive to suggest Obama's racial status doesn't influence any voters.

"You've got people who've got inappropriate feelings on both sides of the coin," Allen said. "You have to just hope more intellectual heads will prevail. I can articulate a lot of reasons I wouldn't vote for him (Obama) that have nothing to do with race. It has to do with … just philosophical disagreements on the issues."

Gow Fields, a Lakeland city commissioner and one of Polk County's most prominent black Republicans, said he has indirectly learned about some white voters who refuse to vote for a black candidate, but he said he thinks they are a small minority.

"I think the most encouraging thing is the predominance of people I've heard directly from or heard other people share comments or stories about, most people are making their decision based on what they believe the candidate's characteristics and values are, what their platform is about and what they feel they'll bring to the table, which is good because that's what we should be basing the decision on," Fields said.

There has been much discussion lately of "the Bradley effect," the theory that black candidates fare worse than projected in elections because some white voters give false responses to pollsters for fear of appearing racist. Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, said pollsters tweak their data in an attempt to offset such factors.

"To deny that race has some factor in people's attitudes about politics is to deny reality," MacManus said. "The good news is that in a diverse, cosmopolitan state like Florida, purely racial, discriminatory voting is probably going to be minimal."

RACIALLY MOTIVATED BLACK VOTERS?

Some Republicans dispute the assumption that Obama's race will cost him votes, and conservative pundit George Will recently suggested Obama gains two votes from guilty-minded whites for every one he loses because he's black.

Whether Obama's racial status even deserves mention is a matter of strong disagreement, with some saying the issue has been ignored and others saying it has received too much press coverage. MacManus, who gives frequent talks to civic and political groups in Florida, said residents of all ideological stripes consistently tell her the media should pay less attention to race.

Fields agrees with that sentiment.

"I think the media has probably spent too much time on it because the predominance of people in this country, they're OK with that (a black candidate)," Fields said. "We need to encourage more of the positive than we do accentuating the negative. Now that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist in America, but how much time do you want to spend talking about it as opposed to - let's praise the people who've gotten past those kinds of things."

Some conservatives also charge that the media focuses on white racism but disregards the tendency of blacks to vote for a black candidate.

According to a Wall Street Journal poll from July, 23 percent of white voters listed race as a consideration in the election, with 8 percent calling it the most important factor. In the same poll, 20 percent of blacks deemed race the most important factor and another 14 percent called it a consideration. Of course, it's possible blacks were simply more candid than whites.

"It's very hard to pinpoint those kinds of attitudes in surveys because Americans have become savvy to giving socially desirable answers," MacManus said.

Victor Lebron, a McCain supporter from Lakeland, said he thinks more blacks than whites are motivated by race.

"I'm not trying to be racial, but I think it's ignorance from the black community, basically, because they want a black person to be president," said Lebron, 25, who has Puerto Rican ancestry.

"It's like, 'Oh, he's one of us,'" added his wife, Keishla Lebron, 18 and also a Latin-American.

Joe Halman Jr. of Bartow is black and a registered Republican, but he doesn't buy the Lebrons' argument.

"To assume blacks would vote for a black would be for me to assume whites will vote for whites because they're white," said Halman, pastor of Winter Haven's Greater Works Ministries.

Halman said he has decided after long consideration to vote for Obama.

Phillip Walker, a Lakeland insurance agent, is vice president of the Polk County Republican Executive Committee and chairman of the local Frederick Douglass Republican Club, a group of black conservatives. Walker, who ran unsuccessfully for the Florida Legislature this year, said he supports the Republican candidate, McCain, though he wouldn't explicitly say he will vote for him.

"Probably when I ran for office, some said, 'I can't vote for a black man,'" Walker said. "I don't know. I hope we've gone beyond that in the 21st century, gotten beyond this color thing. It's something I think we've got to work at even more."

Fields said no fellow blacks have told him outright he should vote for the black candidate, but he said many have assumed racial solidarity will prompt him to vote for Obama. Fields said he voted Wednesday morning but wouldn't reveal his choice for president.

Peterson, the Lakeland car dealer, discounted any moral equivalence between black voters attracted to a black candidate and white voters repelled by a black candidate. He said it's natural for blacks to find inspiration in Obama's candidacy, given the legacy of slavery and discrimination in America.

Harrison, who is white, said he understands why African-Americans might gravitate toward Obama.

"It's at least logical," he said, "whereas white people are basing it on prejudice."

Political analysts predict blacks will vote in unprecedented numbers on Nov. 4. In practical terms, though, blacks make up only about 13 percent of the population; in Polk County, 12.2 percent of the 332,015 registered voters identify themselves as black.

Blacks have tended to vote Democratic since long before Barack Obama came along. Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry each carried roughly 90 percent of the black vote in the past two elections.

Walker finds nothing to lament in the increased participation of his fellow blacks, even if most of them wind up rejecting his party's candidate, McCain.

"Because of being a culture that's been disenfranchised for so long, I think we look at this (Obama's candidacy) being an opportunity, and I would say it is an opportunity," Walker said. "I applaud what has happened in our country today. To see someone of color take part in a major nomination, that should be applauded."

He added this caveat: "But still, I think people should vote on the person, not on the person's color."

[ Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or at 863-802-7518. ]

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